The present invention relates to a device for ejecting stores, missiles, bombs and the like from an aircraft and particularly to devices for ejecting such items in a controlled manner so that not only will collision of the items with the aircraft be prevented but also these items may be dispensed in their optimum delivery attitude or otherwise selectively offloaded as, for example, in a jettison mode.
Prior aircraft stores racks incorporating ejection means are exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2.931,341 and 3,610,094.
A weapons/stores center of gravity should be placed under the ejector piston and the aerodynamic induced moments (caused by the flow field about the aircraft) should be balanced about the center of gravity, or the weapon/store attitude at end of stroke velocity will not be predictable. A current system, using a single piston attempts to overcome this unbalanced condition (when known) by providing various ejector assembly placements within the bomb rack housing. A finite number of placements would be required to meet all ejector requirements due to the variables of unbalance possibilities.
Present dual ejector systems, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,610,094, wherein hot gas is supplied to each piston assembly from a single (or dual) source, attempt to overcome these unbalanced moments and system inertias by orificing. The gas pressure is metered to each piston for countering the unbalance moments with unbalanced power distribution. These orifices are subject to erosion and contamination by the hot gas generators (cartridges) and induce variable reaction forces. The gas energy is used for accelerating the weapons/stores and to resist any external rotational forces induced by the flow field.
Current systems, during ejection, are incapable of totally resisting these internal and external unbalanced reaction forces which affect store attitude. These external unbalanced forces cause a time delay (piston acceleration delay) on one piston, due to gas being compressible. but do not delay the piston which moves independently, thereby accentuating an already bad store-to-aircraft separation condition.